


Paper Doors

by KuroiSei



Category: Bakemonogatari, DRAMAtical Murder (Visual Novel), more tba - Fandom, xxxHoLic
Genre: Crossover, F/F, Gen, Lots of Angst, M/M, Multi, Other, Shopkeeper Watanuki, attempted suicide, multi universe crossover, non-clamp crossovers, not a clamp multiverse fic, post-adayume, pretty much everyone in the xxxholic universe is dead by now, spoilers for all of xxxholic, watanuki focus, watanuki isn't how you're used to seeing him for that very reason
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-12
Packaged: 2018-03-17 09:16:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3523853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KuroiSei/pseuds/KuroiSei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some days were a completely different experience altogether. The shop was tethered to many worlds and mirror universes, and customers that he met on those days were perhaps the most interesting of all. Their stories were alien and familiar all at once, and their lives were puzzles: intricate pathways that he felt honoured to tread and guide. They were another reason to be alive, he considered: if anything they at least brought some sense of variety to a line of work that had left him mentally tired and in dire need of something to pour his heart into. He looked forward to their visits.<br/>Today was one of those days. He could just feel it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fatigue

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first xxxHolic fic, so go easy on me! You can expect a lot of crossovers after this prologue: I have a few planned already, as you can see from the tags. Each chapter will be stand-alone, after this one, so it's more like a collection of stories than one coherent storyline - but I guess that means you can dip in and out of it to find the fandoms that you know and love. Not every chapter will be accessible to everyone, as there are spoilers for both the xxxHolic verse and the other universes we come across, but enjoy what you can! ^ o ^

The customers come to him on account of many things. Romantic dilemmas, troubling economic prospects, high school spats. Cooking disasters, even. Occasions such as these keep him alive when it’s hard to live: hearing the stories and quirks of teenage life helped him to remember the days of his youth. The days when love didn’t mean sacrifice, when friendship wasn’t something that the knife of time could sever. The days of hunching over bento boxes making those funny little octopus sausages that Himawari liked, or the days when he’d ‘accidentally’ make spare inarizushi that a certain familiar old brute would scoff up as if it were the last meal of his life. The days where they’d all be too tired to talk and just lay down on the grass and contemplate the world, or they’d be propelled head first into the social nightmare that is Valentine’s day along with the rest of their classmates. He used to hate those days, or at least try and convince himself that he did, because he knew that in his heart of hearts he really was scared of being happy. Truly happy. Like he was back then. But little had his younger self known that those days would be over before he could even wave them goodbye.

Some customers came to deal with other problems. More serious problems. They’d be spurred on by a need for revenge, or a desire to give up on love, or a selfish drive to chase after material desires, or incomprehensible grief. He’d dealt with murderers, criminals: people that he hated almost as much as he hated fate itself. He’d seen vile human beings walk away scot free by his own hand, and good people walk away with no life in their footsteps, and felt the familiar sting in his mind as he watched himself defy everything that he had ever stood for in the name of his job. And sometimes he’d realise just how hypocritical he was. He’d meet a woman in her forties who demanded that her married high school sweetheart divorce his wife for her, and strain to hear the voice in his head that said that he would have done the same many years ago for another. He’d meet a young man who was willing to give up everything to pursue a woman that was already long dead, and casually brush off the beginnings of tears as he said that it is impossible to truly raise the dead, no matter how strong your love may be. He’d meet an old woman, who could hardly muster the physical strength to tell him that she wanted to die, and tell her to live on, even though he had wanted to die since the day he got that letter in the post from Kohane about the funeral. And a phonecall from Himawari’s husband about will arrangements. And an uncharacteristically sombre message from the Nekomusume that Kohane had passed away in the night. And all the other times too.

He’d had to leave the room, sometimes, to let the mask of the indifferent businessman fall and crumble at the feet of a boy who was barely alive. He’d see faces that he recognised, and he’d see the unseeing eyes of their corpses, drained of all traces of spirit and life. He’d see rotting bodies and decomposing hearts, and he’d see scattered ashes disappear into the mud and be forgotten forever by all but him. He’d see the faces of the mourners too, only to realise that each and every one of them was buried deep in the ground or lost to the whim of the air. He’d cry, most days, and the heaving sobs that left him in his room would be a blessing. Sometimes, though, he wouldn’t be so lucky. Struck deep with nausea, or left deathly pale, or struggling to draw breath as he began to lose sight of where he was and who was waiting for him on the other side of the sliding paper doors. On the worst days he felt nothing at all. He would feel as if he was slipping away into an afterlife, and smile as he had never done before, and embrace the air, and welcome the prospect of death. And wake up five hours later with a knife in his hands and a rapidly healing stomach wound. There was no escape route for him anymore. It was too late to even try.

On days when the children visited him, he almost forgot his troubles. They were lost at the bottom of fairy cakes that he had taught Himawari’s daughter to make as a little girl, or abandoned in the bento boxes that he had made for the eldest Doumeki son’s college lunches. He buried his memories deep in the folds of the youngest Doumeki daughter’s wedding kimono as he secured the obi around her and marvelled at just how much she looked like her mother. When Himawari’s granddaughter had been introduced to Maru and Moro for the first time she had played non-stop with them for days on end, and the smiles that the three of them bore almost made him forget that the spirit girls had no souls. But when he had given the bow and arrows to Doumeki’s grandson after the funeral, the expression he wore and the familiar way in which he studied the bow in his hands was too much for the shopkeeper to bear. The grandson waited for him to return in vain, and eventually left, slowly clicking the front doors shut and slipping away into the night.

Some days were a completely different experience altogether. The shop was tethered to many worlds and mirror universes, and customers that he met on those days were perhaps the most interesting of all. Their stories were alien and familiar all at once, and their lives were puzzles: intricate pathways that he felt honoured to tread and guide. They were another reason to be alive, he considered: if anything they at least brought some sense of variety to a line of work that had left him mentally tired and in dire need of something to pour his heart into. He looked forward to their visits.

Today was one of those days. _He could just feel it._


	2. Silver Fox

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter crosses over with the DRAMAtical Murder universe. The character taken from it is not referred to using the same name, but you will recognise him nevertheless.

The day started like every other day did. He woke to the excited hushed mutterings of the soulless girls, Maru and Moro, and slowly blinked into full consciousness as they ran about in his room. Mokona was always there to demand his morning sake, of course, and what had once been the labouring task of carrying endless bottles to and from the storeroom had become somewhat relaxing: it was like sleepwalking to him now. His heart swelled a little at the memory of Yuuko’s favourite sake, of which Haruka had gifted several bottles to the shop and to her; but as his fingers brushed the flecks of dust gathering atop the sake bottles, he never once considered cracking one of them open in her absence. He was certainly beginning to understand why she had loved drinking so much, and was an avid drinker himself by now, but he felt that drinking her favourite sake without her or Haruka present would be an insult to her memory. So he reached for a lower shelf and settled for half a dozen bottles of expensive sake, which the Karasu Tengu had presented him with for his hundredth birthday. They would do just fine.

After stumbling back into the shop, he slipped one of his work kimono on: it was one of the first ones that he had ever seen Yuuko wear, and indeed it fit her personality more than his. It was a deep purple, embraced in black butterflies that flocked about the silk and chased the hems. Swallowtail butterflies were her symbol, after all. He was a bird, he supposed, but since neither he nor Yuuko could stretch their wings anymore he saw no point in questioning it at all. The obi was something that he’d got used to tying by himself after so long, and though it lacked the elegant wings that Yuuko’s once had, he still looked the very picture of mystery. It was a comfortable fit, but he felt unworthy to wear it, even after so many years. It felt wrong that the kimono fit him so well, as if it were conforming to its new owner and forgetting who once wore it, and Watanuki only wore it for business, choosing to carefully fold it at the bottom of his dresser in a black box when its work was done.

After fixing the morning’s breakfast and downing his first sake of the day, there were no more preparations to make, and all that could be done was to sit and wait in the sitting room. He’d abandoned the elaborate chaise longue after a few years, replacing it with a simple table and chairs that he’d discovered in the storeroom. The cigarette packet on the table lay untouched but nonetheless tempting, and he would have reached for it that very second had it not been for a faint knock at the door.

The visitor, whoever he was, was not unfamiliar with these halls, and before Maru and Moro could reach the door to greet him he swept into the room, meeting the shopkeeper’s gaze with the hint of a smirk on his face. His eyes narrowed, and within moments he had neatly positioned himself on the tatami floor, kneeling and choosing to avoid the table and chairs altogether. He looked awfully pleased with himself, and everything about him loudly declared that he was not human in the slightest. His hair shone a greyish blonde, though with no age to it, and his eyes were a piercing blue and staring intently ahead of him. There was a dragon on his kimono, the shopkeeper noted. The visitor’s skin was pricked with a tattoo of a curling seahorse, and his hands curled tightly around his umbrella as the tiny skulls around his neck click-chattered in unison.

Watanuki had never met the visitor before, but he had picked up rumours from the spirits around him during the course of his life that gave away exactly who the man was. He’d heard stories of rogue kitsune that took human form and took pleasure in fooling mortal men before, and had become well-adjusted to their natire, but the man that stood before him was something else. The Ginkitsune, or so they called him, was a kitsune renowned for his sadistic nature, and his pleasure came not from the simple fooling of mortals, but from orchestrating their demise. To put it simply, he was a manipulator, and a dangerous one at that.  Countless worlds had received a visit from the man-fox, and at last he had come to the shop for a wish.

Watanuki abandoned his chair, kneeling on the floor as the visitor did. They locked eyes for a fleeting moment, and even being the powerful man that he was he felt violated by him: seen through like glass by the man who sat across from him.

“This place has changed quite a lot since I last came here. I like what you did with it,” the Ginkitsune smiled, drawing out his words excruciatingly slowly and taking a quick look at the furnishings dotted sparsely about the room. “Although I do admit that it seems to have lost the sense of grandeur that it had before. Was that your doing, I wonder, boy shopkeeper?”

“Indeed it was. Did you perhaps consult an Ichihara Yuuko? Her taste was rather elaborate.” Watanuki glossed over the insult of the fox-man, choosing instead to tread carefully to avoid any unnecessary conflict.

“ _Ichihara Yuuko?”_ the kitsune inquired. “Never heard of her.”

Watanuki visibly gasped in confusion. Yuuko had been around running the shop for several hundred years, and even he had never found out how far back she and the shop went.

“I started frequenting this place long before this shop had walls. I remember when this place wasn’t even a shop. It was just a man selling wishes. Does that answer your question?”

“Yes,” Watanuki started, “but it still doesn’t explain why you’ve come here.”

The kitsune smiled again, but this time it had stretched into a wide grin, showing off his sharpened teeth and making the seahorse around his neck curl as he swallowed down a deep breath.

“My latest world is interesting,” spoke the Ginkitsune, “but there’s something that I’d like to request from you. A gift… or a talent, perhaps?”

Watanuki frowned. “There’s no such thing as a gift without debt. You should know this.”

“I was joking,” the fox-man smiled, seemingly revelling in the shopkeeper’s rising discomfort, “Trying to catch you out. I thought it would be fun.” He stretched, dropping his umbrella and placing his spiderlike hands on his lap. “Well, there’s a fun game that I’ve got myself invested in. I found an interesting man to play with, and he shares my sentiment when it comes to the fooling of others. We work well together, although I’m the one pulling the strings of course.”

“He heard of my tattooing skills, and his scientific facility is trying to find a serum that can manipulate the brain by penetrating the skin. But I know he’ll fail. What I need is that power, so that I may carry out my side of the deal and learn the art of control.”

Watanuki sighed. “But you know the art of control. You’ve mastered it long before now. So what else could you possibly desire from a deal like this?”

“You could say it’s a little bit of recreational learning,” the fox uttered, “that I would require in order to fulfil my side of the debt to my plaything. And so I thought to myself, _why not come here and see what the place has become?_ You see? Two birds with one stone. And a third sitting across from me whose wings have been clipped. I’ve always been fascinated with caged birds, you know. They certainly make for pleasant viewing.”

Their eyes met again, and the Ginkitsune tilted his head a fraction upwards, as if to make it clear to the shopkeeper exactly how much of a threat he was. “I can’t believe you think I would not be able to recognise you, boy shopkeeper. The spirit world has sung your praises for years and years.”

There was a faint rustling sound, and all of a sudden the man-fox was less than an inch away from him, and had crawled across the floor to gaze into Watanuki’s gold half-eye. “I remember when you lost this,” the kitsune whispered, caressing his cheek with a single finger. “Oh, what a fuss there was over that little thing. I would have seized it myself, had that spider bitch not got in my way.”

The fox began to whisper into the shopkeeper’s ear. “I might be tempted to take the other one. Or your tongue. The throat of a shopkeeper is said to have a lot of value these days. Perhaps your hair? No, that’s not nearly enough. Your heart might do. I want to make up for lost opportunities and take the lot.”

Watanuki felt the kitsune’s eyes darken, and he knew at once that he was being blackmailed.

“Fine,” Watanuki sighed, feeling his heart flood with guilt for the victims of the fox-man, “I’ll do it. But only if you pay the price.”

“The price?” The fox smiled, leaning back into a seating position as the skulls around his neck danced. “Why of course, boy shopkeeper. I’ll do anything.”

There was that smile again. Watanuki hated it, and at that moment in time he was more than willing to grant the wish if only to get him to leave the shop and rid him of his presence at long last. But he made sure to give thought to pondering the price. Perhaps he could make the Ginkitsune’s soul die a little every time he fooled another human being. Perhaps he would waste away just as his victims did? Or perhaps the monster had no soul to give.

“The price,” Watanuki commanded, “is this. You may be granted your power, but your own greatest creation will kill you before your time in that world is up. You will die smiling, but you will have no afterlife. Your soul will disappear forever, forgotten by time. That is your price.”

Surprisingly, the kitsune made no move to protest his wishes, and instead smiled broadly at him. “Thankyou. That will be all, boy shopkeeper.”

He started to get up, placing his long fingers flat on the floor to assist him, and that familiar smirk returned to his face.

“Caged birds are fun to play with, boy shopkeeper. It’s such a satisfactory thing to watch them break. It’s a pity that I’ll never live to see that day. I really do wish I could watch you fall apart before my own inevitable demise, but I suppose that will just have to wait.”

He left as quickly as he arrived, sweeping out of the room and leaving behind a small silk pouch on the floor in front of Watanuki’s chair. Rising to see what it could be, the shopkeeper tugged at the delicate drawstrings and drew out a small pile of silver coins, which under his knowing touch transformed into twigs and leaves and crumpled paper, and fell to the floor as if they were made honest by his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's Ryuuhou. I heard once that the game's canon hinted at Ryuuhou being a kitsune, so this really did interest me to the extent that I had to write an interaction between him and our beloved shopkeeper. Some of the motifs in the story, such as the idea of kitsune being tricksters, and false payment coming in the form of bewitched twigs and paper, comes from traditional Japanese folklore on the kitsune, and although stories of kitsune vary, I think Ryuuhou would be a malevolent trickster, and most likely a powerful manipulator fox. For more information on kitsune, search for the Wikipedia page for a quick summary on their alleged roles and behaviour.


End file.
